I would if I knew them. I did it the non-brainy/really time consuming method of test pieces until they work. Geometry was never my forte. If someone can figure it out, I’d love to know if I ever build one of these again.

youve kind of got me thinking that I need to build one of these. might take me a while to get to and Ill have to pick out some special wood, this one will be a keeper. When the day comes that I do, Ill be sure to credit you for the idea and Ill also write down and post the angles. Awesome box!

-- "despite you best efforts and your confidence that your smarter and faster than a saw blade at 10k rpm…. your not …." - Charles Neil

Before I wax pendantic, I have to say I would love to be the recipiant of that box. I particularly love the man of steel reference too. There’s something to be said for the ‘fake it till you make it’ approch to figuring out angles. Sometimes it’s just easier that way.

For those who want more precise angles, beware, there is math involved. I apologize in advance if this is too long.

Interesting thing about the superman logo is the fact that it is only defined as a ‘diamond’ shape and has been drawn a number of different ways by a number of different artists (Google history of the superman logo some time.)

For me, the simplest method would suggest three 90 degree angles and two 45 degree angles. That tends to be a little taller than most people think of. After some googling and playing around with it, most ideal diamond cuts (which give us the ‘classic’ diamond profile) have two important angles, a crown angle and a pavillion angle, crown being the top bevel’s angle from horizontal, and pavillion angle being the bottom. Typically, the crown angle is typically between 33 and 35 degrees and the pavillion angle is around 40 degrees. There is some play in thes angles depending on the way the facets are going to be cut, but I’m rounding to whole numbers here for simplicity. I’m also getting too technical, so I will only give the end results of my playing with the numbers.

The bottom of the V angle should be 100 degrees. The next two angles up from that should be 75 degrees each, and the two at the top would be 145 degrees. This will give a classic and very recognizeable diamond shape. This would mean that your miter angles are going to be 50, 37.5, and 72.5, respectively.

For nicer miter angles, you can tweak the top two angles. Subtract an ammount from the 75 degree angle and add the same number to the 145 degree angle. For example, intersections at 100, 70, and 150 would still form a nice diamond shape and give easier mitre angles of 50, 35, and 75.If you wanted a shorter shield, you can widen the 100 degree angle at the bottom. Remember that this will reduce both of the next angles up by half of the ammount of the change. For example, going back to the original numbers, if you increased the bottom angle to 110 degrees, you would have to reduce the next two angles up by 5 degrees each, for an end result of 110, 70, and 145. The total of all 5 angles should always be 540 degrees if you want them to meet all the way around.